Statement Analysis®

Susan Smith

An analysis by Mark McClish
Posted May 6, 2002

I am posting this analysis because I recently watched "Headliners & Legends" on MSNBC
which featured the Susan Smith case. As you recall on October 25, 1994, in Union, SC, Susan Smith
reported that a car-jacker had stolen her car along with her
two children. Approximately one week later, Smith confessed that she had drowned her
children by driving her car into a lake with her children trapped in the car.

On the show, several experts (doctors, FBI Agents, etc.) felt that Smith wanted to kill herself
and her children, but as the car was going into the water Smith at the last minute bailed
out of the car leaving her children to die. Nonsense. They can speculate all they want but
lets see what Susan Smith has to say about what happened that night.

In part of her confession, Smith stated,

"As I rode and rode and rode, I felt even more anxiety coming upon me about not wanting
to live. I felt I couldn't be a good mom anymore, but I didn't want my children to grow
up without a mom. I felt I had to end our lives to protect us from any grief or harm.
I had never felt so lonely and so sad in my entire life. I was in love with someone very
much, but he didn't love me and never would. I had a very difficult time accepting that.
But I had hurt him very much, and I could see why he could never love me. When I was at
John D. Long Lake, I had never felt so scared and unsure as I did then. I wanted to end
my life so bad and was in my car ready to go down that ramp into the water, and I did go
part way, but I stopped. I went again and stopped. I then got out of the car and stood
by the car a nervous wreck. "

There is no doubt that Smith had contemplated suicide. "I felt I had to end our lives."
"I wanted to end my life so bad." The question though is did she bail out the of car at the
last minute, or did she purposely murder her kids to get rid of them? The answer can be
found in this portion of her confession when we look at the pronouns in reference to her car:

"I wanted to end my life so bad and was in my car ready to go down that
ramp into the water, and I did go part way, but I stopped. I went again and stopped.
I then got out of the car and stood by the car a nervous wreck."

Pronouns show possession. When Smith uses the phrase "my car" she is claiming
possession of her car. When she refers to it as "the car" she is distancing herself
from the car. Why did she change from a pronoun to an article? Changing pronouns is an indication of deception.
If she was describing the car going into the water with
her two boys trapped in the car, we would expect her to say "the car." No one would want to
take possession of that fateful car. However, she is standing outside of her car allegedly
trying to decide what to do. Therefore, she should have referred to it as "my car." By referring
to it as "the car" she unknowingly tells us she knew what she was going to do. She was going
to send "the car" into the water with her out of "the car" and her two kids in "the car." There
was no last minute jumping out of the car while the car rolled into the water. She
purposely sent that car into the water to drown her two kids presumably because the man
she loved did not want any kids. That is what the jury decided. People's words will betray them.

Susan Smith also used changing pronouns prior to her confession. On November 2, 1994, she made
a public plea to the car-jacker/kidnapper. In part of her statement, she said,

"I would like to say to whoever has my children, that they please, I mean please
bring 'em home to us where they belong."

Smith referred to the kidnapper as "whoever" and "they." This does not make sense. If the last
picture you had of your kids was the two of them being driven away by a male suspect, you
would constantly refer to the kidnapper as "him" or "he" or "the man." This is how she
described the kidnapper in her earlier statements. However, now she is telling us a
different story.

First she says, "Whoever has my children." By saying "whoever," she is
acting like she has absolutely no idea who abducted her kids. However, she supposedly does
know a little about the kidnapper because she was able to give a description of him. Even
though she does not know the kidnapper's name, she should still refer to him as a male
suspect.

Secondly, she refers to the kidnapper as "they." Allegedly, one man abducted her
kids. So where does the "they" come from? It comes from her deceptive mind. Because she
is making up the story she cannot relate to it. She cannot see one man driving away with
her kids because it never happened. Therefore, she slips up and uses the pronouns "whoever"
and "they." As soon as I saw her make this plea on television I knew she was lying.